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Over half of U.K. young adults age 18 to 24 prefer to get their news from video, finds AOL. The publisher commissioned a study on short-form online video watching, and learned that 52 percent prefer short-form video to reading.

The study is from AOL UK's advertising department, and focuses on how short-form videos are shared and when viewers will tolerate brand involvement.

Video sharing for young adults is an expression of personality, a way of stating who they are or bragging about what they've found. Young viewers especially are self-conscious about how the content they share makes them look to others. Among the total population, 38 percent agree or strongly agree that the videos they share say a lot about who they are.

Viewers will accept brand involvement in video and engage with those brands, but only if the results are relevant to them and of high quality. Of all those surveyed, 54 percent agree that watching an ad is a fair trade-off for getting access to a short-form video, and 63 percent are fine with brand advertisements if they're interesting to watch. Frequent viewers are more accepting of ads.

Three-quarters of viewers will always skip ads when they can. AOL suggests advertisers keep their ads short, mention the brand in the first five seconds, use interactive content, and align pre-roll ads with similar premium content.